Jennifer Campbell, Co-Founder of Tagomi: Crypto and Automation's Impact on Society

Jennifer Campbell is Co-Founder of Tagomi. In this conversation, Jennifer and Anthony Pompliano discuss growing up in Hong Kong and Vancouver, why trade execution in crypto has been so bad to date, what impact automation could have on society, and why Jennifer thinks Andrew Yang and UBI are interesting. ----- If you enjoyed this conversation, share it with your colleagues & friends, rate, review, and subscribe. This podcast is presented by BlockWorks Group. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at: https://www.blockworksgroup.io

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Anthony Pompliano?

  What's up everyone, this is Anthony Pompliano. Most of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to Off the Chain, simply the best podcast in crypto. Let's kick this thing off.

• 0:13Anthony Pompliano?

  Jennifer Campbell is co-founder of Tagomi. In this conversation, we discuss growing up in Hong Kong and Vancouver, why trade execution in crypto has been so bad to date, what impact automation could have on society, and why Jennifer thinks Andrew Yang and UBI are interesting. I really enjoyed this conversation, and I hope you do as well. Anthony Pompliano is a partner at Morgan Creek Digital. All opinions expressed by Pomp or his guests on this podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Morgan Creek Digital or Morgan Creek Capital Management. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Pomp as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow

• 0:53Anthony Pompliano?

  a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only.

• 1:02Anthony Pompliano?

  Alright guys, I'm here with Jennifer. We got a whole bunch of stuff to talk about. Thank you so much for coming.

• 1:08Speaker 01

  Thanks for having me.

• 1:10Anthony Pompliano?

  You didn't grow up in the US.

• 1:11Speaker 01

  No, I didn't.

• 1:13Anthony Pompliano?

  Alright, you were born in Canada or in Hong Kong?

• 1:16Speaker 01

  Canada.

• 1:17Anthony Pompliano?

  Alright, born in Canada, but then split time back and forth between Canada and Hong Kong?

• 1:21Speaker 01

  Vancouver and Hong Kong.

• 1:22Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay, let's talk about Hong Kong first. What are like the biggest takeaways from growing up, just spending time there in an eastern world where I think most Americans are like, "I've heard of Hong Kong, I think I know where it is on a map, but I don't know anything about it."

• 1:38Speaker 01

  Um, let's see, um, you know, I think it's like growing up in any big city, right? You sort of get exposed to people much more quickly, and you know, you see a lot more things really quickly, and you sort of think about the world a little bit differently. So I actually grew up with three uncles, all of whom were entrepreneurs, and the three of them raised me together, actually. And so, I know it sounds like a TV show, but it's...

• 2:08Anthony Pompliano?

  TV show, just three uncles?

• 2:10Speaker 01

  Three uncles raised like this little girl, and like had no rules for anything.

• 2:15Anthony Pompliano?

  Wait, really?

• 2:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, imagine like three, they were all entrepreneurs, right? So you imagine the personality type.

• 2:22Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 2:23Speaker 01

  And

• 2:24Anthony Pompliano?

  Very detail oriented, obviously.

• 2:26Speaker 01

  They were all sort of bachelors. I had their own bachelor pad. Um, and I'd like go hang out, um, rotated between the three. Um, but you know, I, I think by contrast, you know, a lot of my friends in school had this really regimented. Um, schedule, um, have you ever read The Little Prince?

• 2:46Anthony Pompliano?

  No, what is that?

• 2:47Speaker 01

  It has just a story about just a little girl in it, you know, had this, her mother has sort of planned out her life from like eight zero to eighteen. And so those, that's, that was all my friends, um, basically. Um, and so I really felt like, you know, I had a lot of agency at a young age that I could do, you know, whatever I wanted. Um, in a way that I felt like, you know, a lot of my friends, you know, didn't, didn't really have. And they were all sort of on a set path, um, from pretty early on. Um, and so I think, you know, a big reason why I felt so comfortable making this jump, um, you know, was because of this sort of that background. Um, and so, I don't know, that's one thing.

• 3:22Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. And, and in that environment, um, I think there's a lot of people in the tech world who, uh, these like Montessori schools and all this stuff where like, hey, we're going to put our kids into these environments. There's like kind of rules, like you can't fight each other, but for the most part it's, you know, you're allowed to ask questions, you address adults by their first name. Like it, it's very, uh, fluid, I think. And much less like hierarchical and the thought processes like that actually produces entrepreneurs, creative thinkers, et cetera.

• 3:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was very much the environment I grew up in.

• 3:55Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay.

• 3:55Speaker 01

  Um, well, I guess I experienced both because at school, you know, it was quite regimented, but then at home it was, you know, whatever I, you know, whatever I wanted, really.

• 4:02Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And, uh, you were going to school in Hong Kong?

• 4:06Speaker 01

  I went to school in Hong Kong until I was about twelve.

• 4:09Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay.

• 4:09Speaker 01

  Um, and then Vancouver for high school.

• 4:12Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And was there anything when you came back to North America that was like a really big like difference in terms of going from high school in Hong Kong to Canada high school?

• 4:26Speaker 01

  Well, the pace was a lot slower, you know.

• 4:28Anthony Pompliano?

  Really?

• 4:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, um, and, you know, I, I also just couldn't wait to get out, actually. You know, I, I loved the city so much because even when I was five or six, you know, I was, you know, I went on the trains everywhere. I could go anywhere I wanted. Whereas when I moved to Vancouver, you know, unless you have a car, you know, you're, you're kind of stuck at home.

• 4:47Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 4:48Speaker 01

  And so I explored the neighborhood a lot, but there, you were kind of just stuck. Um, and so I, I really loved growing up in a city just because I felt like I could do anything I wanted.

• 4:58Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 4:58Speaker 01

  And it was quite common, you know, to, you know, have, you know, six, seven year olds, you know, be by themselves, you know, take the train, you know.

• 5:06Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 5:07Speaker 01

  So that was quite common.

• 5:08Anthony Pompliano?

  Look, even here in Manhattan, I see, you know, young kids on the subway and I'm like, there's zero chance I was growing up, my parents let me do that, because it's just, if you grow up in the environment, it's much more natural than, you know, I probably would, when my parents brought me to New York City as a kid, it's like everyone's holding hands, right? Like, don't lose our kid.

• 5:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:25Anthony Pompliano?

  Uh, so it's pretty crazy that, uh, especially in, you know, Hong Kong or China, you know, all these different, um, countries, uh, and cities that, again, I think that it's, everyone does it?

• 5:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:37Anthony Pompliano?

  And so it's like a little bit more.

• 5:38Speaker 01

  It was a lot of fun. I have such great memories of sort of going to school by myself, because it felt like an adventure every day, you know? Um, I, there was a guy, um, a German guy, um, on the bus that I, I took every morning from, I lived on the small, um, peninsula, um, called Red Hill Peninsula. It's near Stanley Park, um, and in, in Hong Kong. Um, and then we would take the bus out to Central, which is kind of like the central, um, it's called Central, but it's also the central, uh, part of Hong Kong where all the, uh, companies are and, you know, big businesses are. A lot of the banks are there.

• 6:10Anthony Pompliano?

  Mm-hmm.

• 6:11Speaker 01

  Um, and he just told me like crazy, you know, scary stories that, you know, six, seven year olds are not supposed to hear, you know, about, um, like the World War II, about politics, about, um, you know, about, um...

• 6:27Speaker 01

  You know, his family, you know, that, you know,

• 6:30Anthony Pompliano?

  All kinds of stuff.

• 6:31Speaker 01

  All kinds of stuff that was like, you know, really, really interesting and fascinating to me.

• 6:35Anthony Pompliano?

  And, and so I'm guessing that a lot of young kids that grew up in that environment, they usually mature much faster, right? In terms of they've got a more worldly view, or especially if you lived in multiple places, uh, speak multiple languages, right? I think there's a lot of science that shows like your brain develops different ways. Uh, and then when you get into, um, like, let's call it post schooling, right? So business world, whatever you're gonna do.

• 6:59Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 6:59Anthony Pompliano?

  I think that your view is just very different, right? Like you almost have like much more experience in dealing with, you know, hey, I have to have money to go on the train or on the bus, right? Like that little thing.

• 7:11Speaker 01

  That's interesting.

• 7:11Anthony Pompliano?

  There's a lot of kids who never had to think about having enough money for how much it costs, right?

• 7:15Speaker 01

  That's funny. Yeah.

• 7:16Anthony Pompliano?

  But you've done that for, you know, two decades, let's say, after, by the time you graduate college, right? And you've just been thinking about it much longer. So it just fascinates me, I think, going back and forth between different countries. And then also the kind of independence that's thrust on you. Uh, and just humans kind of like rise to the challenge a little bit. And you just becomes normal, right? Cause like, I'm sure in high school, did you feel like you were just like so much more independent than all of your friends? Or it wasn't that obvious?

• 7:40Speaker 01

  Um, maybe a little bit to start. Um, but I think my group of friends specifically were all quite independent. Um, but maybe, you know, more broadly out of the class, um, perhaps we're a little bit more independent.

• 7:53Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. So graduated high school, end up going to Harvard. And then you end up at USV, uh, Union Square Ventures.

• 8:00Speaker 01

  Right.

• 8:00Anthony Pompliano?

  Uh, why go there? What, what was that experience like?

• 8:05Speaker 01

  I mean, I, that was just sort of the biggest blessing in the world. Um, I, I love being there. Um, you know, just the people, first of all. Uh, the partners are just the most kind, genuine people, you know, you would ever meet. Um, there's, there's lots of people with very sharp elbows in the venture business. Um, and it's hard to find, uh, people like them, I think. So I think it's a very special group of people, first of all. Um, and then second, you know, I had applied to a couple places outside of USC, um, when I graduated from college, but. I just found that it was all, you know, it was sort of cold calling businesses, kind of scouring the world for, for a deal. And that really wasn't really what I was looking for. And USV

• 8:48Speaker 01

  actually, you know, they were quite the opposite, you know, they thought that was, you know, don't, don't waste your time on that, you know, um, you know, they spent a lot of time, it was almost, you know, Fred Wilson calls it an MBA, you know, um, sort of learn whatever you want, learn about the venture business, learn about different industries, um, you know, and any entrepreneur you want to connect to, you know, they'll connect you. And it was a great place to grow up, really. And, um, and so, you know, it was, it was a great blessing to be there.

• 9:12Anthony Pompliano?

  And while other firms are doing, let's call it outbound deal flow sourcing, uh, USV is more focused on what comes inbound and through their network, or they just had other people doing the outbound sourcing?

• 9:24Speaker 01

  Um, well, they, no, so, um, they, they say they're like thesis driven. So really what that means is like, they have some view about how the world's going to change, right? Um, and then they decide, okay, well, if the world's going to move towards this direction, like, what are the companies going to look like? Um, what's going to do really well? That's kind of unexpected, uh, given current business models. And then they kind of go find that company, right?

• 9:47Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it.

• 9:48Speaker 01

  So if you think social networks are going to go be, going to be a thing, um, you know, and you have a view on that, well, you know, you go out and go find all the social network companies versus having companies inbound and then evaluating, okay, I think this is a good company. I don't think this is a good company. That's what it means to be thesis driven, right? You sort of think about how the world's going to change, um, and then go find that company that you might think, or should, you think should exist, um, that isn't here yet.

• 10:12Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And so, uh, while you're at USV, uh, they're obviously big proponents of crypto.

• 10:18Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, absolutely.

• 10:18Anthony Pompliano?

  Uh, just a little bit. Um, and, uh, they've made a number of investments in the space. They've talked a ton about, you know, both what they're seeing happen, but also where they think the world is kind of going and how some of this will, uh, will go. Were you spending most of your time on crypto? Or were you kind of all over the place? What was that?

• 10:35Speaker 01

  I spent most of my time on crypto.

• 10:37Anthony Pompliano?

  And that was driven by personal interest?

• 10:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. But it was also a lot of what the firm was looking at at the time.

• 10:42Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it.

• 10:43Speaker 01

  But it was, um, it was sort of the best place to be if you were interested in crypto. Um, just because you had so much agency, um, you know, the, the brand of the firm, uh, the entrepreneurs you could get connected with, um, and also the people they had already invested in, you know, um, had, you know, there was so much to learn from there. So.

• 11:02Anthony Pompliano?

  And what attracted you personally to it?

• 11:06Speaker 01

  Well, I think first of all, um, I just thought it was a revolution.

• 11:12Anthony Pompliano?

  That's the biggest understatement in the world that we've had on this podcast.

• 11:16Speaker 01

  Uh, and, you know, I just thought it was, I thought it was very exciting. Um. But I think separate from that, like I, I just really thought, um.

• 11:28Speaker 01

  You know, I was, you know, trading a bunch on all the exchanges and, you know, a part of it was also, you know, I thought there was. A part of it was also just because there was so much, you know, um, arbitrage between all the exchanges and statistical arbitrage between all the exchanges. You know, that's why I was like trading all day on all these exchanges and, you know, that's part of the reason I started to go on me is just because I thought. You know, trade execution could be done so much better. Um, and.

• 11:51Anthony Pompliano?

  So you were actually trading while at USV, you're doing all kinds of statistical arbitrage, et cetera.

• 11:56Speaker 01

  A little bit.

• 11:57Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 11:58Speaker 01

  And I, but also, you know, I had spent so much, spent so much time talking to people about, you know, the space and Bitcoin. That when people got interested, I was sort of the go-to person to ask like, hey, how do you put, you know, $10 million in Bitcoin? And I said, um, well, you can't, uh, not immediately, right? But you could spread out over a course of a month, you could, you know, um. But really there weren't great solutions, right? I sent a bunch to the exchanges, I sent some to the OTC desks. Um, but a lot of these, at least more sophisticated investors were expecting a lot more.

• 12:29Anthony Pompliano?

  Of course.

• 12:30Speaker 01

  Um, and, um, you know, I had spent a bunch of time with Greg Toozer. So my, uh, partner that I started this company with, um, he was previously the head of elementary trading at Goldman. Um, and, but we really was sort of an entrepreneur at heart. So he, um, early on his career, he started a company, also a trading firm. Um, and that got, um, he sold that company and then it got bought by Goldman, which is how he ended up there. Um, so, you know, Greg is really an entrepreneur at heart as well. Um, but, you know, I said to Greg, like, these are sort of textbook solutions, um, you do a lot better in this space. Um, and I was kind of, um, seeking his expertise because I was kind of looking for a company in this space.

• 13:10Speaker 01

  And I, I looked at a, a whole bunch of them, but really never found, um, you know, a great solution, I thought. Um, and then ultimately we thought, you know, actually, you know, why don't we start this company together?

• 13:21Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And so let's talk about trade execution, right? I think it's a term that people hear all the time. Uh, the. Majority of people I think actually don't understand what that means, right? So it's like, hey, I've heard it, I'm familiar with it, I don't want to admit to anybody, I don't know what that is.

• 13:35Speaker 01

  Right.

• 13:35Anthony Pompliano?

  So maybe let's talk, just what is it? And then what are the challenges around trade execution in crypto today?

• 13:41Speaker 01

  Right. So I would just think about, like, how good is the price you get? Right? That's one way to think about, the most simplest form of trade execution, right?

• 13:50Anthony Pompliano?

  Is I'm gonna go buy a Bitcoin on an exchange, I'm just gonna buy one Bitcoin, and the price today says, you know, $5,112. Is that actually what it's worth? Or is there overpriced or underpriced of what the actual value is?

• 14:03Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 14:03Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 14:04Speaker 01

  So that's at the most completely oversimplified, but, you know, at its core, right? Like, did you get the best price you could, you could have? But I think it's probably easier to think about, you know, back in the day, if you had, you know, brokers on the floor, buying and selling, you probably really care who your broker is, right? Because you think, you know, the guy who, you know, makes a better deal is gonna get you a better price, is gonna help you, you know, buy and sell a lot better. But when you think of computers, you, you don't think about that. But that, it's still absolutely true. And having a better trade execution system makes a massive difference. And there are folks, you know, paying, you know, massive spreads today. They're a lot better than they, you know, were a year ago, but still, it could be a lot better.

• 14:49Anthony Pompliano?

  And just so that we make sure everyone understands, a spread is, you're buying the Bitcoin for $5,100, but actually, you should be buying it for $5,090. This is a $10 spread.

• 15:01Speaker 01

  Right. So if someone buys it for, you know, $100, and then they're gonna sell it to you for $120, they, they had a $20, $20 spread there.

• 15:08Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep. And so in that, that spread in crypto is going to the exchanges? Or is that going to people on the sell side or the buy side?

• 15:18Speaker 01

  So it depends, right? Exchanges don't really have spread, they charge a commission, because they're supposed to be matching buyers and sellers. When there is a spread, it's when you're dealing with a buyer or seller directly. So if you're going to an OTC desk, or if someone's trying to, you know, sell or buy you, help you buy Bitcoin.

• 15:38Speaker 01

  You know, they charge the spread because they're marking up, you know, I bought this for a certain price. I'm going to mark that up and sell it to you and that markup is the spread.

• 15:47Anthony Pompliano?

  Well, this and so yes, to a degree, but I guess some of these platforms that are now coming out, the eToros, the Robin Hoods, et cetera, we can debate whether they're called exchanges.

• 15:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, so they're a broker, so they're allowed to charge you a spread and then maybe even a commission on top.

• 16:02Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 16:03Speaker 01

  Exchanges are a different category. They're supposed to be matching buyer and seller.

• 16:08Anthony Pompliano?

  With no spread, just a commission?

• 16:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, because they're supposed to be, you know,

• 16:16Speaker 01

  you know, they're not supposed to be taking a spread in between, you know, they might charge a commission on top for the service of matching and buying and selling, but they're supposed to be, you know, the fair, you know, adjudicator between all the different participants. And so it wouldn't, you know, it's not fair to, you know, charge a spread there.

• 16:31Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And so when you guys say, hey, we're going to start a company to solve this problem, what was kind of the core idea in terms of how do you actually solve the trade execution problem?

• 16:39Speaker 01

  So at the time, you know, the space was really fragmented. And so if you were trying to buy and sell, say, a million dollars of Bitcoin, you had a couple of options, right? You could go to an OTC desk and then, you know, pay, pay up a little bit because they did all the operational work for you and, and, you know, that was one option. But or two, you could, you know, do this all yourself, right? But what does that mean? You have to sign up for 10 different exchange accounts and then you have to split up your balance sheet between each of these 10 accounts. And then, and then you're like, okay, let me, you know, sign into, you know, you have to have some screen that shows you where the good trades are at each time. And then you have to organize all your trades and then reconcile between all the different exchanges.

• 17:23Speaker 01

  And then you have to settle across each of the exchanges. And then to get your Bitcoin back, you have to sign into each of those 10 accounts. It's, and it's just a complete nightmare. And so.

• 17:34Anthony Pompliano?

  Just the description doesn't sound fun.

• 17:36Speaker 01

  Right, exactly. And you would have to do all that to. To trade across all these exchanges. So what Tagomi does is make that all go away. There's one interface to trade across all the different exchanges to make sure that you're getting the best execution. You can think of it as best price when you're buying and selling Bitcoin.

• 17:55Anthony Pompliano?

  And so for a customer from a psychological standpoint, I come to Tagomi because I want to buy X Bitcoin, for example, and I know that I'm going to get the best price for those Bitcoins that's available currently.

• 18:07Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 18:07Anthony Pompliano?

  And Tagomi is going to have a kind of magical way of doing that. I don't even need to understand how they're doing it.

• 18:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, one analogy I use is, you know, each of these retail exchanges is like Delta or, you know, American Airlines. And we're Expedia or Kayak. And so we sit on top of all these exchanges. And, you know, we have a much better view of what the true market price actually is.

• 18:31Anthony Pompliano?

  And so I think that's the psychological understanding of a user is like you've promised them best price. So they come and they use the product. Let's talk about what's going on behind the scenes, right? So what are you guys actually doing when you sit kind of on top of all those different exchanges? Do you ping the different exchanges through an API, get prices and then execute on only one of them? Do you actually take my purchase of a million dollars and break it across exchanges?

• 18:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:54Anthony Pompliano?

  Walk me through how that works.

• 18:55Speaker 01

  Your million dollars is going to be split into really tiny trades of maybe a couple cents each. So that you're not picked off by, by somebody, right? And then that gets smart routed to each of the different destinations. And then every time we see a good price, we, we buy or sell for you. And then we kind of gather that all back up for you.

• 19:17Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 19:17Speaker 01

  And tell you what your, the price was. And then at the end, you'll get actually a report that says, you know, we bought, you know, we bought $3 at Coinbase. We bought like $6 at Kraken and like, you know, $8 at Bitstamp. And you can see exactly how and when we executed that trade for you.

• 19:34Anthony Pompliano?

  And how does the system decide $3 at Coinbase versus $6 at Kraken versus whatever?

• 19:40Speaker 01

  Right. At the most simple level, it, you know, depends on what your inputs are, you know, what your parameters are, what you're asking us. You tell us a little bit about your preferences or you could, right? If you're much more advanced, but at the most simplest form of it, you know, you're asking for the best price. And so we'll get you the best price based on what we see on each exchange.

• 20:00Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And I've been fortunate, I've seen the interface, it's pretty slick. And when you're talking about the preferences, you're saying things like, "Time is really important to me right now, so therefore I'm willing to be a little less stingy on price," right?

• 20:12Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 20:13Anthony Pompliano?

  "Get me in the market."

• 20:13Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 20:14Anthony Pompliano?

  Versus, "Hey, price is the most important thing, but I don't need to own my million dollars worth of Bitcoin today. I can do it over the next 48 hours."

• 20:22Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 20:22Anthony Pompliano?

  "So get me the best price over 48 hours," right? When you see people coming on board today, most of these are institutional folks, they're retail. Where do you see most of the interest for the product?

• 20:35Speaker 01

  It's a mix, but it's usually someone trading in size, right? So it's less about who they are, whether they're a high net worth individual, or in a hedge fund. It's more about how much they're trading.

• 20:50Speaker 01

  But actually, you know, there's a lot of people who want to sign up, you know, we haven't accepted them yet, just because we're focused on the client who's trading in size. But folks who only want to trade like 10K or 25K, that's saying, you know, "I want to use to get me just because it's a better experience," you know? And so at some point, we'll let those folks on to that platform as well. But it's really folks who are trading in size, who would experience a lot of liquidity cost if they were trading on any other platform or on a single platform. And so it's usually the hedge fund, the RIA, you know, lots of, you know, high worth individuals too, who, you know, buying a million, 10 million, sometimes even more, or, you know, or sometimes, you know, they're just buying, you know, 10K as well.

• 21:33Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And so how does the infrastructure that you guys have built compare to the traditional kind of trade execution, right? Obviously, the team's got some experience doing this at some of the, you know, the best places in the world. Are you able to replicate, you know, kind of one-to-one what the traditional world has with, in the crypto world? Are there some challenges still with the infrastructure and the technology? Like where would you put us at?

• 21:57Speaker 01

  I think it's mostly similar with some sort of nuances. You know, Bitcoin trades very differently than, than, you know, typical equity markets. But also just the exchanges and infrastructure in this space is generally a lot less mature. And so it requires a lot more, there's a lot more advantages on the infrastructure, right? You need to be a lot more careful about when an exchange adapter goes down, making sure your rewrap trades to somewhere else. Um, you know, there's a lot more care around, um, around that. So, but in general, you know, it's, it's the same high level ideas.

• 22:34Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And, and really what you guys are ultimately doing in kind of a generalized way is you're using technology and automation to be smarter than humans, right? To some degree, right? And, and, and not in like the negative connotation, but the idea that me as a single individual, if I wanted to purchase a million dollars worth of Bitcoin, I could go get a bunch of computer screens or, or different tabs, you know, and, and I could do a lot of what you're doing.

• 22:59Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 23:00Anthony Pompliano?

  It'd be super inefficient. I would definitely make mistakes, right? Or, or not get best price.

• 23:04Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 23:05Anthony Pompliano?

  Uh, it would be hard to make a bunch of manual three, six, five, you know, eight dollar purchases up to a million dollars.

• 23:11Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 23:12Anthony Pompliano?

  Um, and then also I wouldn't get all the reporting.

• 23:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:15Anthony Pompliano?

  Right? So I could do it. It's just not ideal.

• 23:17Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 23:18Anthony Pompliano?

  What you guys then do is you use technology to automate that.

• 23:20Speaker 01

  Absolutely, yeah.

• 23:21Anthony Pompliano?

  Uh, yeah. Before we started recording, we were talking about like this may be a theme across a lot of different industries where automation technologists have a significant advantage.

• 23:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:31Anthony Pompliano?

  Um, and it's going to have a material impact on society.

• 23:33Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 23:33Anthony Pompliano?

  Right? So tell me a little bit more kind of, uh, how you've thought about that. And I think you've got some just unique ideas there.

• 23:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, sort of switching gears a little bit, um, you know, before, before we started recording, we were talking about, um, automation in the world generally. And, um, I think it's just going to keep, you know, growing exponentially, right? So, you know, we're going to see, um, more things being automated away, more jobs being automated away. And, um, at the end state, I think it'll be, there'll be a new aristocracy, um, where either you understand, um, this new technological revolution, um, and you own some technological asset that, um, siphons you up into this new aristocracy, um, or your job is sort of automated away and you become part of sort of the, um, lower class. Um, and I think there's going to be, I think it'll take some time to get there, um, but

• 24:24Speaker 01

  that's sort of the end state as I see it.

• 24:26Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep. And because really what you're talking about, you're talking about this great divide, right?

• 24:29Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 24:29Anthony Pompliano?

  Where the technologists have a significant advantage in society, right?

• 24:33Speaker 01

  Right.

• 24:33Anthony Pompliano?

  A whole, whole bunch of different ways, uh...

• 24:35Speaker 01

  Not like, you know, the industrial, industrial revolution.

• 24:38Anthony Pompliano?

  Absolutely. People who understand that, hey, there's going to be wealth creation, there's going to be opportunity, all this stuff, the technology or the innovation is going to drive this. If you are associated with that, you participate, or you create that, you benefit.

• 24:50Speaker 01

  Right.

• 24:50Anthony Pompliano?

  If you don't, you kind of get left behind a little bit.

• 24:52Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 24:54Anthony Pompliano?

  Let's talk about the people who do not have those skills today. Do you think it's more of, let's try to help those people get skills, right? So let's teach them how to code, let's teach them different things around technology, or data science, or how to participate?

• 25:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:10Anthony Pompliano?

  Or do you think it is, we may not be able to get everyone educated enough to actually participate?

• 25:16Speaker 01

  I think it depends who you are, right? So with young people today, we should absolutely put more resources into making sure they're learning the right things. And certainly, some topics are much more important than others, especially computer science, things like that. But you know, if you're like 50 or 60, and you know, I think there's a lot of people thinking that we could re-educate this sort of class of people who have been doing their jobs for 40, 50 years. That's very hard. And I think, you know, we have to help them in other ways. I think that's very, very difficult.

• 25:58Anthony Pompliano?

  And they may not be affected, right? Like, in the sense of, let's say that the, I don't know what life expectancy today is, but probably like around late 70s, right? Let's call it, kind of 75 to 80. If you're 60, that means that, pretty much, based on the average life expectancy, in the next 20 years, this would have to happen for it to have an impact on your life.

• 26:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:16Anthony Pompliano?

  We may see elements of it, we may see the beginnings of it, but the odds that 20 years from now, there's this massive divide where if you don't understand this technology, you know, you're screwed?

• 26:27Speaker 01

  So I actually think you'll get there a lot faster.

• 26:29Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay, faster than 20 years.

• 26:30Speaker 01

  I don't think the aristocracy will be apparent until a much later stage.

• 26:34Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay.

• 26:34Speaker 01

  But you will feel the effects of this, you know, like, you know, automation, much, much earlier, right? Like, we're already experiencing it now, right?

• 26:43Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay, give me an example.

• 26:45Speaker 01

  Well, that's why there's so much populism, right? Like, before this, we were talking about sort of Trump and AOC, and, you know, we were talking a little bit about Andrew Yang. You know, I think a lot of these are sort of symptoms of this.

• 27:00Speaker 01

  Of what's already currently happening, right? And, you know, there's the opioid crisis. All are sort of symptoms of automation, which, you know, it's already underway. So I don't think it's, you know, 20 years away. I think, yeah.

• 27:15Anthony Pompliano?

  Well, the, the great divide from an economic inequality standpoint probably is, I think you're saying it's delayed, even though the automation hits faster than 20 years, right? 20 years or whatever the number is, is when it becomes so apparent that you can't ignore it.

• 27:30Speaker 01

  Exactly. I think you'll start experiencing the inequality much sooner than that. And people will have a hard time finding jobs. For example, you know, that will be a lot sooner. But seeing like, seeing that, you know, the aristocracy part, you know, I think that's, you know, much later. Maybe 20, 30 years.

• 27:47Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. And the part that's really interesting to me, so when I pitch crypto and Bitcoin, et cetera, to all these institutional investors, I talk about automation, right? And I basically say, look, you need digitally native assets, right? For the digital world, you need digitally native assets. The old technologies of paper or electronic Q-cips are incompatible with the machines and algorithms of today. So we need just digitally native assets. It's a computer file, double spend problem. So we need digitally native accounting, which is triple entry accounting. And then we need digitally native contracts that govern all of these transactions, right? So it's just assets, accounting and contracts for the digital world. They really get that, right? Like, like to them, it is inevitable that automation is coming, right? So you get a very wide range, everything from, you know, analysts who are right out of school,

• 28:30Anthony Pompliano?

  all the way up to, you know, 60, 70 year old CIOs and board members all understand this stuff's coming. So I don't think it's like a, a huge surprise to people. I think timeline is a big question, right? Is this two years away, five years away, 20 years away? And then the other piece is who gets automated away first? So I've had really interesting discussions about, I think most people are like, oh, we're just going to use robotics and automation. And like the factory worker's gone, right? We see some of that, right? You know, if you look at like a Tesla factory, for example, there's definitely robotics and automation that's going on there that have replaced workers. But there's a very strong argument that it's actually white collar workers, right? Things like bankers and stuff that, look at Wall Street trading floor.

• 29:10Speaker 01

  I totally agree. I totally agree.

• 29:11Anthony Pompliano?

  It's not just blue collar workers or white collar workers. It's actually across the spectrum, we're gonna see this have a pretty material impact.

• 29:18Speaker 01

  Absolutely, yeah.

• 29:19Anthony Pompliano?

  And do you feel like when it comes to, let's say, government and governance, right? So not just the US government, but just governance in general. I think that you're like me in that we're not ready for this stuff, right? There's a lot of stuff that's gonna happen that we just have no clue on how to react to, how to govern over. And it feels like that all starts with our politicians, right? Andrew Yang has been blowing up in the crypto community. And before we're talking about how he just has a very unique view of the world. A lot of it comes from this technology-driven perspective.

• 29:56Speaker 01

  Right.

• 29:56Anthony Pompliano?

  Tell me more, I think, from your perspective, like, forget him as a specific candidate, but just this idea of a technology-first government official, right? Kind of what the pros and cons you see there are? Like, why do you think that is attractive today versus kind of the, we'll call it like, the politician of yesteryear?

• 30:16Speaker 01

  So, um, we take a step back a little bit. So when I talk to a lot of, you know, people in my network are, you know, usually in the top echelon of society a little bit, right? So they always say, okay, well, if you're gonna tax, you know, Amazon and all these technology companies, why wouldn't you use it to, you know, fuel even more, you know, technological development? Like, why give it to, you know, the poor? Like, and this sounds horrible, but you know, if they, you know, can't really help themselves, like, you know, it's a really, you know, dire, you know.

• 30:51Anthony Pompliano?

  It's pretty dark, yeah.

• 30:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. But also, you know, I think the reason, you know, you should do it is because it's, you know, also ensures that you don't have a revolution, right? Like, if you're a very rich person, like, what don't you want to happen? Like, a revolution, right? You don't wanna get murdered by people. And that's why I think universal basic income should be interesting to you, you know, even if you're in the sort of very top echelon class. And I think, um... It's easy to pitch it to someone who's like experiencing, um, you know, they find it hard to find a job, right? Like they relate to it immediately, but it's really hard to pitch someone who, you know, um, works in the valley or, you know, has, you know, a lot of money

• 31:32Speaker 01

  or, you know, who, who doesn't really experience, um, you know, what I think a lot of people in the middle of the country are experiencing.

• 31:39Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep. So let's talk about UBI for a second, right? So universal basic income is this idea that every single person is entitled to the right to have a wage, right? That is either they earn or is given to them by a government, right? There's some kind of support that's provided. Uh, I think that it's becoming a hot topic because Andrew Yang is saying he's going to give away money, right? He's going to give a thousand dollars every month to American citizens, uh, as part of this UBI program, uh, highly controversial, UBI in general.

• 32:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:08Anthony Pompliano?

  Um, I think what you're saying is if people revolt because they're hungry, they can't provide for their families, et cetera, if you basically take away the, the fact that they can't do that, or you provide that ability to them, it is much less likely that there is any sort of revolt or revolution.

• 32:25Speaker 01

  Right.

• 32:26Anthony Pompliano?

  Right? Do you feel like there's other ways to provide that economic benefit without it being a subsidy from the government, though? And, and I'll give you an example. So I've had a lot of conversations with friends around, uh, this idea, like you get paid for your output, right? So whether it's your ideas, your effort, your time, whatever, you are spending something to receive financial payment back, right? In, in, in society. And one of the things that we've never put a ton of value on, but we probably should have, is our data, right? And so there's this whole argument that all of the data you create, whether it's how many steps you take, your heartbeat, what you click on, on the internet, what sites you go to, you know, what books you read, whatever it is, that data, if there was some way for you to retain control of it and permission people in and out of it

• 33:11Anthony Pompliano?

  and get paid for their use of it, could you actually create what feels like a UBI situation, right? Because you're, you're not actually doing anything different than you're doing today, but you're getting paid in exchange for that data?

• 33:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:25Anthony Pompliano?

  Then just, hey, you're getting a check because you're an American citizen.

• 33:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:28Anthony Pompliano?

  Right? And so to me, that feels kind of like UBI, but it's also not necessarily coming from the government. It's not a subsidy, right? There, there's some value attached to it as well.

• 33:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I think that's really interesting. I also just think in general, there's um a lot of things that are valuable to us as humans and human beings that are not valued in a sort of capitalistic world. Um, and if we can shift that a little bit, you know, if you take care of um, you know, your parents, or if you take care of, you know, people in society, things that, you know, society really benefit from, um, but you couldn't get paid for it. Um, if we sort of make that a little bit more value, um, valuable, so that you could actually get paid for it, you know, that's very interesting. And this sounds like, you know, um.

• 34:11Anthony Pompliano?

  It's almost like gamification, or like, like, i- it's a lot of like the crypto economics, right? Or kind of incentivization of, uh, if you could somehow gamify doing good things that there's a net benefit to society or to other individuals, you're compensated in exchange for that. And yeah, it's pretty interesting.

• 34:30Speaker 01

  I, I will say that the reason why I like UBI so much is because of the simplicity.

• 34:35Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay, explain that.

• 34:36Speaker 01

  It's, it's very simple, you know, you give away money. Uh, there are no rules. Everybody gets it. You know, you don't have to figure out if they make too much money. You don't have to figure out like who they are, you know, there's no rules around it, right? Uh, with welfare, there's, you know, a lot of, there's lots of rules, right? Like, there's, you know, a case manager, like, it's really expensive, um, and UBI is just very simple. Um, and I think that's sort of a really important feature that is really hard to find, um, and sort of other ideas that people have really talked about. For example, the selling data thing, you know, it takes a lot of infrastructure to do that.

• 35:11Anthony Pompliano?

  For sure.

• 35:11Speaker 01

  And so in theory, it's, you know, a great idea, um, but in terms of practical ideas, um, you know, I, you know, I think something that's simple is quite valuable.

• 35:21Anthony Pompliano?

  Do you, do you fear that, because I think the knock against UBI, right, is, oh, we're going to disincentivize people from wanting to work. We're gonna, we're gonna change the way, we're, we're gonna go from the capitalistic society to a more socialist type society, right?

• 35:36Anthony Pompliano?

  Do you feel like that has validity? Do you think that maybe it's overstated? Like, how do you view that as part of it? Because I agree that

• 35:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:43Anthony Pompliano?

  The UBI model is super simple. You breathe, you get money every month, right?

• 35:48Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 35:49Anthony Pompliano?

  Like, very simple to understand. Are there those negative effects that people accuse it of having?

• 35:54Speaker 01

  So I think it's the opposite. I think, so if we think about the welfare system, right? You have to make sure people don't earn. If you make too much money, you won't get the welfare, right? And so you're actually incentivized to stay under a certain income bar to make sure you keep getting your welfare, right? So it's actually, it actually disincentivizes you to keep working.

• 36:17Anthony Pompliano?

  And so in this, in this case, I guess, really what ends up happening, because here is something that's really interesting. So my girlfriend's from Bulgaria and I've been there with her and we recently watched this documentary. And people were talking about socialism in the documentary. Like, I miss the years of socialism. And it's not because they're looking at it from a macro view.

• 36:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:40Anthony Pompliano?

  They're looking at it on a very micro level of my life was better because there was more wealth, right? From me as an individual in this country's view, socialism brought me more wealth. And so that is a better system. And it's very interesting how the views change macro and micro.

• 36:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, so to be super clear, like, UBI is like not socialism, right?

• 37:01Anthony Pompliano?

  No, I agree.

• 37:01Speaker 01

  Socialism is when you've centralized the means of production. And, you know, it'll be great for a little while, right? But then at some point, you run out of other people's money. You know, the famous phrase, right? And so, you know, that doesn't work, right? But UBI is actually very capitalistic. You know, you create more value, you get more, right? And so it's also very libertarian. You know, you do whatever you want with your money. So it's actually completely different than I think the

• 37:29Anthony Pompliano?

  I'm not saying that UBI is socialism. What I'm saying is socialism is something that if you look at it from a macro view versus a micro view, right? People have very different opinions. And I think that most people, especially in the Western world, where, you know, we believe in a capitalistic society, would look at socialism and say like, oh, that doesn't work. Or I mean, literally, we see fear mongering with socialism and all this stuff. But then you go and you talk to the people on the ground and they love it, right? Because because the way that it had an impact on their life, if you then switch to UBI or any other one of these different types of, I think, macro.

• 38:01Speaker 01

  I would argue against that. I probably think like in a specific period of time at the micro level, probably people really liked it. But then if you change that timeline to sort of the end period of that, you know, socialism, period of socialism, probably people, you know, might have changed their mind about it.

• 38:19Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh, okay. Interesting. You're saying that, yes, there was a period of time where they enjoyed it, where they're benefiting it from it.

• 38:25Speaker 01

  Right.

• 38:25Anthony Pompliano?

  But when it comes to an end, right?

• 38:27Speaker 01

  Right.

• 38:27Anthony Pompliano?

  Because because it's unsustainable, then they realize, oh, wait.

• 38:30Speaker 01

  This was really bad, right?

• 38:30Anthony Pompliano?

  This was bad.

• 38:31Speaker 01

  In the short term, you know, that's nice, you know, I'm getting so much extra, right? But in the long term, it doesn't really work.

• 38:37Anthony Pompliano?

  Absolutely. I think that's a fair way to look at it. Let's talk about some more of Yang's, we'll call it his agenda, just because, and again, it's less about him specifically, it's more just about, I think, his technology first focus, right? So things like automation, we were talking that he's gonna try to use holograms to do campaigning, so he could literally be in multiple places at one time. Why have other people not done this stuff yet? Is it just literally he's a creative thinker and he understands technology? Do you think there's like incentives within government structure and politics that like disincentivizes people from doing this stuff?

• 39:12Speaker 01

  I think people just probably think it's weird.

• 39:15Anthony Pompliano?

  Really?

• 39:15Speaker 01

  Some people do, probably, right? I don't know.

• 39:21Anthony Pompliano?

  But maybe, but like, I feel like you, myself, a bunch of people in the technology world, we actually think it's super smart.

• 39:30Speaker 01

  We're all the adopters, right? Like, we think it's really cool. We think it's really smart. I don't know. We'll see what happens.

• 39:35Anthony Pompliano?

  Like, because I guess in sci fi movies, there's always like the leader who like patches in on television, right? And it's like overlooking a big group of people and is like, you know, they're in an arena and they're basically like dictating to them, which is the negative side of that. But but to me, it's like, when I saw the hologram thing, I was like, that's one of the smartest things I've seen presidential candidate talk about doing.

• 39:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:57Anthony Pompliano?

  Talk to more people.

• 39:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:59Anthony Pompliano?

  I got it. All right. So let's talk about Bitcoin in a global macro view in the sense of we're talking a lot about how governance works, humans governing other humans, right? Part of that is they also govern money as it stands today. Bitcoin provides an alternative, right? There's a algorithm and that algorithm and that computer code governs the monetary policy, governs the monetary schedule, all that stuff. What do we need to see happen for the mass consumer to start to open their eyes and kind of shift more towards a more automated money

• 40:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:36Anthony Pompliano?

  system or monetary system compared to that human system?

• 40:41Speaker 01

  I think actually growing distrust in centralized governments. You know, a lot of people talk about, you know, it's better training technology and infrastructure, or, you know, it's just more of an education process, or I think it's just growing distrust in the government or some other centralized, you know, institution.

• 41:00Anthony Pompliano?

  So it's just a passage of time. Those institutions will continue to

• 41:03Speaker 01

  When the use case becomes so much more clear to you because you've sort of experienced, you know, a really negative event.

• 41:10Anthony Pompliano?

  And would you argue that's what we're seeing in like the Venezuela's, the Iranians of the world where it's become much clearer? Maybe it's not completely clear to 100% of the population, but it's become much clearer that fiat currency with hyperinflation is bad? And there's this other alternative?

• 41:26Speaker 01

  Um, maybe like I'm, I just feel like, you know, it,

• 41:33Speaker 01

  um, that's sort of more like a, you know, two hour long conversation. There are a lot of nuances there, but you know, I think that could be one example.

• 41:46Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. Okay. What's the one thing in crypto that people are not talking about that you think they should be?

• 41:52Speaker 01

  So I, I, I actually think, you know, Bitcoin as a payment system is a, is a red herring. And actually, if I were Coinbase, actually, I would give 25 million accounts, right? They're all connected to their banks. I would actually, you know, compete with Venmo. Make it really easy to pay each other in between those accounts and compete with a centralized system, which, you know, is, is a little bit, you know, not, you know, not what they set out to do. They talk a lot about decentralized finance, but I, I actually think, you know, you know, that'd be pretty interesting.

• 42:27Anthony Pompliano?

  And, and so your argument is if you have, you already have the network, right? In terms of you have users, those users today are only interacting with you as the centralized entity, right?

• 42:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's no network there, right? They're just coming to, it's like a store. They come, buy their Bitcoin and then they leave, right? There's no network. But what is the network? It could be a massive payment system and compete with, you know, PayPal and Venmo and, you know, massive businesses or just become a bank, right?

• 42:53Anthony Pompliano?

  Does Coinbase not allow you to withdraw money from your account into another Coinbase account? Like, I guess that would be like the hack, right? Like, it's, it's super difficult to do in terms of, it's not a good user experience.

• 43:06Speaker 01

  Like, it has to be more like, if I want to go send, you know, if I want to send money to you right now, like, what do I do? I like go Venmo you, right?

• 43:13Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 43:14Speaker 01

  But they should make it as easy to do that on Coinbase.

• 43:16Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh, yeah. Oh, the user experience would have to be drastically better, right? But I don't even know if they have the actual functionality, like, could you withdraw between accounts? I don't even know if that exists, but the user interface, I think, is, it would be essential to improve it. And, and also, it's also, to me, one thing that I think crypto loses a little bit, once you get into like the hardcore blockchain world, is users do what you tell them to do, right? And what I mean by that is both by the way you present a product, right? So like, Tagomi, you're coming for best price.

• 43:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:49Anthony Pompliano?

  What do I think when I think of Tagomi? Best price, right? I'm coming for best price, right? That is the brand promise. And the second thing is the way that the interface is set up, the user experience, right? All of these different things guide me to do things. Now, I still have choice, right? The sense of I can hit cancel or I can go back or I can go to set, you know, all this stuff. But you're definitely helping me do what you think I should be doing, right? I think that that gets lost a lot, right, in crypto and blockchain, because it just feels like everyone's so focused on the technology, right? And it's the the design, the user experience, that brand promise, like all of these things that are like more kind of soft skills, right? But that's what makes a lot of these products that we use every day, like a Venmo, so valuable.

• 44:32Speaker 01

  Right.

• 44:32Anthony Pompliano?

  Right? And it just it just feels like they're not there in crypto yet, right? Maybe it just takes time. I don't know.

• 44:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, totally. It feels like, you know, if you want to use email, but you have to understand email protocol, like, you know, no one really understands that, right? But they use email all day, right? Like, we're not there yet with Bitcoin, but also, you know, other cryptocurrencies, and we have to get there.

• 44:51Anthony Pompliano?

  Do you think that's like a five less year type journey, or do you think that's actually longer?

• 44:58Speaker 01

  I think five less year. I would vote for that.

• 45:00Anthony Pompliano?

  You you you you have a lot more confidence, I think, in the automation and and the user experience and all this stuff improving than I think most people do. But it's probably closer than we think.

• 45:12Speaker 01

  I think it's it's an exponential curve, right? So it's gonna

• 45:15Anthony Pompliano?

  Accelerates.

• 45:15Speaker 01

  Accelerate, right? So you feel a little bit like, you know, but, you know, in two years, in three years, it's it's gonna feel a lot more extreme.

• 45:24Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. All right. Before I wrap up, rapid fire questions. Most important company in crypto other than Tagomi?

• 45:30Speaker 01

  Uh, Tagomi, obviously. You can't not let me say that.

• 45:34Anthony Pompliano?

  What what is the second most important company?

• 45:37Speaker 01

  Um, I don't think it's a company. I think it's, you know, people working on protocols or or

• 45:47Anthony Pompliano?

  You can say Bitcoin.

• 45:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, like I was actually just about to say Bitcoin. I was gonna say like, you know, if you think about the most important networks in crypto, they're not companies. They're, you know, it's like Bitcoin, it's like a protocol.

• 46:01Anthony Pompliano?

  I completely agree.

• 46:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. So I wouldn't say a company, I would say something.

• 46:05Anthony Pompliano?

  If you could improve or change one regulation, what would it be?

• 46:09Speaker 01

  Ew, is it Bitcoin regulation?

• 46:11Anthony Pompliano?

  No, it could be anything. Anything that touches kind of crypto. Okay, all right, you do UBI. All right, that's fair. What is your most controversial thought in crypto? Like, what do you believe that you think almost everybody else would disagree with you on?

• 46:24Speaker 01

  I think, you know, payments is a red herring, and that, you know, I think Coinbase should become, go compete with Venmo.

• 46:32Anthony Pompliano?

  Do you think they could win?

• 46:34Speaker 01

  Well, if they really have 25 million accounts, like, I don't have a, you know, you know, we have to look, they don't have a lot of data, but if they really have 25 million, like, what the highest CAC there is really getting people to connect with their bank accounts, right? That's really expensive.

• 46:47Anthony Pompliano?

  For sure.

• 46:48Speaker 01

  It's really hard to get people to connect to their bank accounts. And they've done that with 25 million accounts. Um, that's really valuable, right?

• 46:54Anthony Pompliano?

  Um. Do you think that the...

• 46:57Speaker 01

  I think the average person is not gonna be like, oh, there's, um, like, this new coin, let me buy that, you know, they, it's just too long of an education process. Um, but what is something they do every day? You know, payments.

• 47:10Anthony Pompliano?

  Do you think that the incumbent technology companies like the Twitters, the Facebooks, maybe even the Googles, who have these built-in user bases, they are networks, or they're already connected, not through financial services, but information, profiles, whatever?

• 47:26Anthony Pompliano?

  If they entered the fray, do you think they're actually the ones who have the best chance of winning?

• 47:31Speaker 01

  Well, like, Facebook, you know, Google, they don't have my bank account, right? So it's just such...

• 47:35Anthony Pompliano?

  You think that's such a hard thing to get somebody to do?

• 47:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I think so. I mean, it takes some time. It would just be such a tiny pivot for Coinbase. And also, you know, Facebook has a trust issue, like, no one's gonna connect, you know, their bank account to Facebook, um...

• 47:51Anthony Pompliano?

  See, alright, so I, I disagree with you on this. I agree with you on a lot of things, but I disagree with you on this. My guess is that in North America?

• 47:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:59Anthony Pompliano?

  People don't trust Facebook, right? To some degree. Outside of North America, I actually think that Facebook may be one of the most trusted companies.

• 48:08Speaker 01

  So I actually, you know, that sounds like, you know, that sounds about right, but at the same time, they've had that payments thing for years, right?

• 48:19Anthony Pompliano?

  Like Pay and Messenger.

• 48:20Speaker 01

  Pay and Messenger, right? Like, no, and you can connect your bank account to that, right? So no one's done that, right? Like, there has to be some, like, reason for you to, to get over that hump, right?

• 48:33Anthony Pompliano?

  Um, do we think that, oh, man, I'm gonna go find this out.

• 48:37Speaker 01

  There's a big activation cost, like...

• 48:38Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, yeah, or do we think that Facebook Messenger has more than 25 million people's bank accounts attached to it, or less?

• 48:45Speaker 01

  I think less.

• 48:46Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh, I think more. I don't, I don't know what the answer is.

• 48:48Speaker 01

  I have no idea.

• 48:48Anthony Pompliano?

  I'm gonna go find out. Alright, we'll, we'll find out, but that's actually a really good data point, right? Is, because you're right, they have had it for a long time, it's on a global basis. How many people have done it? If it's a really small number? They probably will struggle to do it if it's actually a bigger number and it's less about it being a big number because they have hundreds of millions of people doing it. It's probably just there's certain countries where they have deep penetration. And that's how everyone like the network in that country uses it. But I think that'd be a really interesting data point to know. What's the most important book you've ever read?

• 49:20Speaker 01

  Ah, I couldn't pick one. Um.

• 49:24Speaker 01

  Maybe Bitcoin by Paper. That's so cliche though. Um.

• 49:28Anthony Pompliano?

  No one's ever said that.

• 49:30Speaker 01

  Really?

• 49:30Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 49:31Speaker 01

  I'll say Bitcoin by Paper.

• 49:33Anthony Pompliano?

  Alright. Uh, or The Prince. Is that what the book you said earlier?

• 49:37Speaker 01

  The Little Prince.

• 49:38Anthony Pompliano?

  The Little Prince?

• 49:39Speaker 01

  That's also a very, very famous book.

• 49:42Anthony Pompliano?

  I've never read it.

• 49:42Speaker 01

  Really?

• 49:43Anthony Pompliano?

  Never heard of it. Nope. Uh, aliens. Real, not real? Believe? Don't believe?

• 49:49Speaker 01

  Um, probably not.

• 49:52Anthony Pompliano?

  You don't believe in aliens? Alright, explain. There's only two other people I think that have ever come on and not believed.

• 49:57Speaker 01

  We would have found them by now.

• 50:00Anthony Pompliano?

  Really?

• 50:01Speaker 01

  No.

• 50:02Anthony Pompliano?

  Space is so big in terms of, uh, we're just one universe. Like, there's so many different universes. The, like, just mathematically, the probability that we can even be aware of all of the places that aliens could be is so low. That like, I, I, I'm at like 99% likely they are out there and the odds that we are the only intelligent life form on the only planet where that could happen. I don't know.

• 50:31Speaker 01

  Maybe. Yes, all your.

• 50:34Anthony Pompliano?

  Every single one.

• 50:34Speaker 01

  Really? Okay.

• 50:35Anthony Pompliano?

  Two, I think only two people have not believed. Uh, and then Josh Brown, shout out Josh Brown, because Josh Brown literally, uh, hit us with, uh, ghosts are more likely to be real than aliens.

• 50:49Anthony Pompliano?

  We end each one. You can ask me one question.

• 50:51Speaker 01

  Hmm. Um.

• 50:55Speaker 01

  What's your most controversial thought?

• 50:59Anthony Pompliano?

  I think that Bitcoin has a massively higher probability of becoming the global reserve currency than people give it credit for today.

• 51:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:10Anthony Pompliano?

  Uh, I would put the odds at.

• 51:13Speaker 01

  Is that controversial?

• 51:14Anthony Pompliano?

  Yes, because I think that most people look at it, like even like hardcore crypto people.

• 51:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:19Anthony Pompliano?

  If you were like, what are the odds right now that Bitcoin could become? It's like less than 20%, almost always. Like I, I've asked a bunch of people, right? And so it's like, the people who want to be nice and they don't want to sound controversial will say like single digits. They probably believe more like 10, 15%. And then the people who are like comfortable being a little bit more controversial will go as high as like 20%.

• 51:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:40Anthony Pompliano?

  I think we're at least over 50%.

• 51:42Speaker 01

  Got it.

• 51:43Anthony Pompliano?

  Uh, in terms of probability. And what we've seen is when Bitcoin goes up head to head when a fiat currency is failing, it's like not even, right? It's just, you just see the movement of funds. Now, there could be other reasons why that happens, all this stuff. But the one thing I always go back to is when fiat currencies fail, almost always is because humans lost discipline, right? So they hyperinflated their own currency. They, they just made bad decisions. An algorithm doesn't do that, right? Now, the design could be incorrect, right? But the design is going to be executed based on what the code tells it to do, right? And so this idea that like, when we started, we talked about automation a lot, right?

• 52:27Anthony Pompliano?

  One of the things that I talked to institutional investors about is, look, humans actually trust the algorithms more than they trust humans already.

• 52:33Speaker 01

  Right.

• 52:33Anthony Pompliano?

  Now, you, you know, you go to a city and you get lost, you pull up Google Maps, you don't ask them on the street corner.

• 52:38Speaker 01

  Right.

• 52:38Anthony Pompliano?

  You don't really ask your friends for music anymore. You listen to Spotify and Apple Music and they do these recommendations, right? Uh, if you have a question, you ask Google and Siri, you don't ask your friend. It's like, we trust these algorithms so many other parts of our life. Eventually, we're going to trust an algorithm with money, right? It, but when it comes to finances, to your point, like to get somebody to connect a bank account, really tough, right? Like the trust level has to be so much higher for a financial service with an algorithm versus something that's not financial.

• 53:04Speaker 01

  I think for something, for Bitcoin to become, um, like money, we actually have to evolve to a system that has. The protocol has to have some levers in it that can smooth out business cycles, right? There is some benefit to having a centralized system, right? Like you can smooth out business cycles and that's really valuable. It prevents recessions, make sure, you know, people aren't, you know, suffering too much. And you can't do that with Bitcoin, right? Which is why I really think Bitcoin is just a store of value. I think we'll need a different protocol if we're gonna do money.

• 53:34Anthony Pompliano?

  Really? You think that, okay, hold on, we can't end yet. You think that Bitcoin is a store of value, but you think that there has to be another digital currency?

• 53:43Speaker 01

  It has to be more sophisticated than Bitcoin. I think Bitcoin's pretty simple. You know, people try to make it way too complicated. It's, you know, it's much, much better version of gold, it's a much better store of value and that's kind of it. You know, I think, you know, we'll have to

• 53:58Speaker 01

  see a more sophisticated protocol with some different levers in it to

• 54:02Anthony Pompliano?

  Any idea?

• 54:03Speaker 01

  To become good money.

• 54:03Anthony Pompliano?

  Any idea what those would be?

• 54:06Speaker 01

  Um, I haven't seen anything yet, what the levers are?

• 54:09Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, yeah, like what the levers would be.

• 54:10Speaker 01

  You know, to, you know, you know, inflate and deflate, like same thing, same thing that like the central bank has, you know, something like that.

• 54:17Anthony Pompliano?

  And how do you envision, so let's say that that would be true, right? How do you envision like the government, who gets to pull the levers, basically?

• 54:23Speaker 01

  That's what's so hard, right? Like, that's why...

• 54:26Anthony Pompliano?

  Nobody trusts anybody.

• 54:27Speaker 01

  Right, exactly. And, which is also the brilliance of Bitcoin, right? It's the brilliance Bitcoin, but I think that's also why it's so hard for it to become like money for a daily use case. Because, you know, there are some benefits to having a centralized system that you don't have in Bitcoin quite yet, right? And those benefits do not matter for a store of value. That's why Bitcoin's so good for that. But it does matter for some of these other applications.

• 54:53Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, I just saw, I recorded another episode recently and I talked about in the last two recessions, they've cut interest rates by at least 500 basis points. And rates today are, you know, two and a half percent or so. And so if we had another recession, basically this op-ed was arguing that tool's no longer in the tool, like we can't cut 500 basis points if you only have two and a half unless you're willing to go to negative, right?

• 55:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:17Anthony Pompliano?

  And so... There's this element of like, we are in a system where there are those levers, right? And if the levers are there, people are going to pull them for good or bad. But what we're seeing is like, we may not have some of the levers we've had previously, and we may have new levers that we can pull.

• 55:31Speaker 01

  Right.

• 55:31Anthony Pompliano?

  And they were even talking about like, could there be an intentional, not hyperinflation, but like a more inflationary model that would be used to try to, you know, recover from some sort of future recession? And I think I just fundamentally disagree that humans are smart enough to do that stuff. Right? Like, like it coming out of 2017, or 2007, 2008, like, I think a lot of people are like, oh, look, we just had this huge bull market, you know? It was great. We like reversed the recession. But I think, again, if you go back to your like, we'll just widen out the timeline. We probably just made the problem worse and kicked the can down the road. Right? So like, yeah, for those 10 years, it was great.

• 56:13Anthony Pompliano?

  Right? But do we actually end up with a bigger problem when it, when it all kind of finally blows up? I don't know. Right? And I don't, I don't think we know that yet. But, uh, but, but it's really interesting to think about, especially, I don't think I've heard anyone argue, Bitcoin could be a store of value, and then we can have another digital currency that could be centralized or decentralized, and that's money. And you basically have a two currency system to some degree, right? In terms of gold and a daily currency.

• 56:39Speaker 01

  Probably. That's sort of what's intuitive to me.

• 56:43Speaker 01

  It's hard for me to think about Bitcoin as a payment system, but maybe.

• 56:46Anthony Pompliano?

  All right.

• 56:47Speaker 01

  I just, I think that's.

• 56:48Anthony Pompliano?

  We only disagree on two things. That's fine. I'm going to bring you back when Bitcoin is the global reserve currency, and we'll talk about it.

• 56:55Speaker 01

  Okay, great.

• 56:56Anthony Pompliano?

  Awesome. Thank you so much for doing this. I am a big fan of what you guys are doing at Tagomi. I think that, you know, you guys have built a fantastic team and, uh, and people are really excited about it. So we'll, we'll have to use again in the future.

• 57:06Speaker 01

  Okay, awesome. Sounds good.

• 57:09Anthony Pompliano?

  Hey, everyone. Pop here. If you liked this episode of Off the Chain and want to help us take crypto to the top of the apple, Spotify and other podcast charts, please do us a favor and rate, review and subscribe. To review, simply go to the Off the Chain homepage, scroll down until you see the five blank stars. Taking 15 seconds to fill those stars in and leave a quick review goes a long way in helping us take the entire crypto ecosystem to the top of the charts. I appreciate you listening and see you next time on Off the Chain.